21/10/2017

Kaupunkipyörät: Miksi veronmaksajien rahoilla?

As
bike-share’s growing popularity in the United States spurs private investment,
cities that have considered starting their own municipal programs are beginning
to ask: Why bother trying to round up millions of dollars when a private
company will come in and do it for free. Following success in China, private
firms in the last few months have deployed masses of brightly colored bikes
ready to zip around American cities, pushing their way into a market that until
now has been dominated by city-subsidized programs.

Unlike existing publicly
financed bike-share programs, with bikes that are docked at stations, the neon
green, orange and yellow bikes from competing companies are dockless — picked
up and dropped off wherever a user likes. Riders use an app on their phone to
find available bikes and unlock them for about $1 a half-hour, a cheaper
walk-up price than most existing programs offer. The entrance of dockless
biking into the U.S. market has rocked a bike-share sector that has long relied
on city workers’ help to assemble federal grants, city funds and advertising
and sponsorships in order to lure bike-share operators. But those endeavors may
be nearing an end. [pew]